A gift from nature

Is the menopause the end or the beginning?

Definitely the beginning. Contrary to what we’ve been hearing over the years, menopause is used to prolong our youth, health and life. Few people know that we age the fastest not during menopause, but during the reproductive period!

Then why are we so afraid of this menopause?

Because we still look at ourselves through the eyes of men who don’t understand the essence of femininity. For centuries, the patriarchy has told us that everything related to femininity is dangerous, and reduced the role of women primarily to sexuality and childbearing on the other. This influenced our perception of femininity, which the patriarchy appropriated for itself.

Some men often equate our ability to reproduce with our attractiveness.

Women let themselves be convinced that they are attractive only when they are still ovulating. How many women who have trouble getting pregnant admit that they don’t feel fully female?

But there is more to us than just the ability to reproduce. Besides, a woman after her menopause does not cease to be beautiful! For many of us, this new postmenopausal deal is a time when in which we feel even more attractive than we used to be, more fulfilled. We no longer have to strive for the acceptance of others, we understand ourselves, we take care of our own needs.

You summed up this moment beautifully in your book, “When ovulation ends, evolution begins.”

Because for me entering the menopause was the moment I started to wonder about the essence of my femininity. And it turned out that I am only now fully blossoming in it. For me, it is the beginning of something new and, above all, it’s something conscious.

Unfortunately, these social distortions and stereotypes are the work of our Western civilisation. After all, there are cultures that treat menopause differently. There are those that do not notice it at all. In many cultures there wasn’t even a word for this state. Our thinking of menopause as something to be treated, to be ashamed of, is specific to our time and place.

In the past, women were valued for the experience and wisdom of age. The older women were the guides for the younger ones. Our menopause in many cultures was therefore the crowning moment, not the end of femininity. I also noticed this difference in perception when talking to my fellow yogis. For them, the menopause was only another stage in the journey, they did not suffer from it like women brought up in Western culture.

Nowadays, we’ve turned everything upside down. And what should be our great strength is considered something dangerous. Unfortunately, the Western world tends to be self-centred, we forget that our perception of reality is only one of the possibilities. And not always the right one. Because is it wise to be ashamed of femininity?

This shame made menopause a taboo.

The menopause is culturally treated like an insult. The message fed to women today is overwhelming. In most of the publications on menopause, we are described as almost disabled individuals. Therefore, we are ashamed to admit that we have already entered this stage. We feel inferior, deficient, and inadequate to ourselves.

Was it also a taboo in the group of your female relatives? Did you talk about how to go through this process consciously and without fear?

When I was younger, I didn’t talk about it because this taboo was also present in my family home. Anyway, I pushed this topic away from myself, told myself that it didn’t concern me, that I still had plenty of time. I believed that since I lead a healthy lifestyle – not so long ago I gave birth to a second child by the forces of nature – I would probably only deal with it around sixty. When I suddenly found out that I was already there, I was not completely prepared for this process. Back then, I didn’t understand that it was actually a gift from nature. I still thought menopause was the beginning of the end.

So what was your process of entering into a state of full consciousness like?

The problem was that earlier I also thought that I was a woman that’s aware, that since I don’t like stereotypes, I’m free from them. And it was only when the menopause came that I felt how deeply all these cultural codes imposed on me are rooted in me after all. That, for example, I don’t have to paint my nails because who said that then I would be more attractive? So, I had to go through the whole process of “unpacking” myself, looking at this process from different angles. I had to find out where it came from because I felt subcutaneously that this feeling of bondage did not suit me at all. It was then that I understood how many things that are not ours are taken by us without reflection from generation to generation. The menopause has become for me, above all, looking at myself and redefining my femininity.

And this “femininity should not be treated, it must be respected and understood,” as you have emphasised many times. If this process is so important and natural, why are we trying to artificially correct it?

Because the patriarchy not only demonises menopause, but has also made this natural stage of life a disease. We have been taught that menopause is inextricably linked with disability, dysfunction, and a torment that we must endure, and if it is a torment, it is best to soothe it with some miraculous pill. When I found out I was entering the menopause, I began to read a lot about it. I was fine, but it bothered me because I was told to suffer in so many books. But all these books focused only on our physiology, they lacked a broader, holistic view. That’s why I started looking for other sources. And as I delved into what Eastern medicine says about menopause, I saw how different this approach was.

Our medicine treats man as a weak, defective being, that needs to be repaired with more and more new medicines because this defective being cannot cope on its own. Ayurveda says that a person is strong by nature and all you have to do is stop disturbing them. And if the body is not fully healthy, it means that we have disturbed its natural harmony somewhere along the way. So all you have to do is to find the source, the moment when it happened.

Meanwhile, we have been hearing for years that hormone replacement therapy is the only way for a smooth menopause.

Western medicine only focuses on counting hormones, and as soon as their number doesn’t match, synthetic drugs are prescribed immediately. However, it is worth remembering that numerous scientific studies show that HRT has many serious side effects. The decision to use the therapy should therefore be made by us with full awareness and knowledge of every aspect of it because administering hormones is a big interference in our bodies and disrupts the entire naturalness of this process, which is the menopause. Instead of treating menopause, we can consider why a person takes it so badly, and find the actual cause that is usually related to lifestyle and not just going through the menopause. This should inherently be a gentle process. Menopause does not have to be synonymous with malaise and unpleasant ailments. But if we have practised bad habits for years, now we will feel the effects because the body will not be able to take the next burden of changes during the menopause.

So how can we prepare for this?

These are the recommendations that we all know. We should take care of ourselves. We should get some sleep if we can. We should be attentive to our emotions, learn to recognise them, learn about our reactions to them, and look for ways that will allow us to live through them the best we can. We should consider what situations cause us stress and what best helps us cope with it. And we should put aside all stimulants. We should also remember about our diets. There are already studies that have clearly shown that simply eliminating meat from menopausal women made them feel much better. I also highly recommend yoga to all women.

Is just taking care of your body enough?

Of course not, because we are not only the body, but also the mind and the soul. Self-acceptance and self-love are extremely important. I know that this concept has become fashionable and is therefore perceived by many as banal, but a good relationship with yourself is necessary to regain peace. Acceptance is important, but also forgiveness. Because we often carry some unworked pain inside us, after all, each of us, entering the time of menopause, already has a lot of life experiences behind us, not always pleasant ones. And culturally, we have been taught to leave this baggage, bury it. After all, we always take care of ourselves at the far end. But if we do not clean this baggage, it will also be more difficult for us to enter the path of self-acceptance. This is the basis for starting something new and moving forward.

It is so often emphasised that menopausal women are more vulnerable, and it is so easy to put the responsibility for it on the hormones. Meanwhile, it is a result of the fact that we do not work over our experiences for years.

You worked them out and…?

And I became a fulfilled woman. Entering the menopause gave me a sense of strength and dignity.

I also felt that I didn’t have to strive for anything anymore, I got rid of the overwhelming pressure. The menopause freed me from many aspects of my life that previously limited me. It was a moment of relief and real liberation. Now I feel the inner peace that springs from beautiful maturity. It also became a quiet time for me. For years, I had struggled with a hormonal swing every month. I was really glad that the tensions before, during and after menstruation were over. I have the impression that before, my whole life was revolving around my period.

And has menstruation ever been of special importance to you?

There was just a time in my life when it was needed. And when it was no longer needed, it was gone. And that’s the only way I see it now.

Do you think about talking to your daughter about it?

I’ve already talked to her. After all, Helenka is a tiny woman. I want her to grow free from all the stereotypes, burdens and limitations that I had to face. Anyway, I sat down to talk to her and my husband. I told them that it was a time of changes for me, that I didn’t know what it would look like, that I might be more nervous or emotionally unstable because I had heard such things about this period. So I asked them for patience and understanding so that I could go through this process with a feeling of support, understanding and acceptance.

Was it easy to talk to your husband about it? Women tend not to share these experiences with their partners.

We create a wonderful, mature and very close relationship, so it surprised me that it wasn’t an easy conversation for me. I felt embarrassed and realised that this feeling was not mine, that it stemmed from the shame that we carry within us as a collective. I worked it out within myself, and my deeper understanding opened us to a new stage in our relationship, even more mature, intimate, wonderful. When we accept and love ourselves, we open ourselves to being accepted and loved by others as well.

I’m not going to be ashamed of who I am or the processes that I go through. This power of mature femininity radiates from me. Thanks to it, I wrote the book “Menopauza. Podróż do esencji kobiecości” [“Menopause. A journey to the essence of femininity”], which now supports other women. Our good, conscious life is just beginning now!

 

 

 

Agnieszka Maciąg – model, journalist, presenter and author of books, including “Menopauza. Podróż do esencji kobiecości” [“Menopause. A journey to the essence of femininity”]

Author: Magdalena Keler

The text was published in „Wysokie Obcasy” a magazine of „Gazeta Wyborcza”

17 April 2021